


The Price

by stateofintegrity



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:38:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3593220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Bilbo did not rescue the dwarves from Thranduil's dungeons. Instead, Thorin makes a dark bargain to see them set free. Years later, Gimli, Fili, Kili, and the other sons of the company will see it honored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction: The Promised Ones

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fetters](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/104895) by Honesty. 



> Disclaimer: This story was inspired by an unfinished fic found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1263877/1/Fetters - so all good credit and good praise to Honesty! [With thanks to kanadka for helping me find the original].

Introduction: The Promised Ones

 

Dwarves are an honorable race, and their word, once given, will not be retracted. That was something that the hobbit Bilbo Baggins could not have understood. His plan might have been accepted if it had come _before_ Thorin had made his bargain with Thranduil, elf king of Mirkwood, but never afterwards. “They call us faithless,” the tales had Thorin saying, “and we will give no truth to their foolish words.”

 

So it was that Thorin Oakshield left the dungeons of the King of Mirkwood and ascended to the throne after the Battle of the Five Armies and after his grievous wounds had finally healed. While he had lain abed, his regent Daȋn, might have asked Thranduil to reconsider, to name a prize more precious than that which was promised. It is rumored that Thranduil expected him to. And yet, the bargain was never remade, and so it came that in the years following Smaug’s death, dwarves came again to the court of the elven lord.

 

Hands bound in chains forged by mighty fathers, they were bound, as well, by Thorin’s bargain, made before their birth. As servants they had been sent from their mountain halls and the Lonely Mountain rang with wails. Gimli remembered the tears running in rivulets over his father’s seamed face. Bright whiskers, torn from his beard in dwarven grief, had bristled in his closed fist. “I can give you nothing that will aid you in your years among the wood elves,” he said and sighed with bitterness. “And I cannot ask your forgiveness.”

           

Gimli had given it anyway, joining the son of his uncle Oȋn as well as the sons of Dwalin, Dori, and Bofur. Bombur had sired no sons, dying early due to his great weight. Balin, too, had no son to send. Some said that he had avoided courtship (an easy thing to do in a race where the men seemed always to outnumber the women) because of his guilt over the contract. Thorin had no sons, but he, too, would suffer grief because of his pledge. Kili joined his cousins and his friends as tribute to the King of Mirkwood, and where Kili went, Fili followed. Thorin would suffer the absence of the sons of his friends for the agreed fifty years – and for that time he would also have no heir.

 

So it was to pass that dwarves would dwell far from the Lonely Mountain and the sound of their own speech was heard no more by their ears. Fearing “dwarven treachery,” their masters kept them separated, so they had no comfort of a shared fate. Cursed and taunted by the elves and stripped of their pride – mightn’t their new masters have left them something by making them smiths, at least? – they grew solemn and bitter at heart. In the seventeenth year of their hated bondage, none of them imagined that their freedom stood near, and none of them could conceive of the events that would set in motion their release.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_The elf is broken_. The thought stumbled awkwardly through his mind as he came to a halt in one of the Elven King’s interminable corridors (elves, to his mind, liking taking the long way around _everything_ ). From what Gimli Gloinul had observed during his time in Mirkwood ( _Eryn Lasgalen_ , he corrected; the elves took it very, very ill whenever anyone suggested that their forest was less than a paradise) elves did fall ill. Bruises did not come to mar their milk-white skin. Gimli wasn’t even sure that the tree-loving things could bleed.

 But that certainly looked like blood. And those thick, black lines beginning to appear beneath the skin – that was the work of orc poison or he was a Stonefoot. Even a creature as besotted with root and branch as an elf deserved better than to have his veins swelled with filth, to freeze even in the midst of fever. Abandoning the water pails he had been set to carrying, Gimli hefted the elf in their place and began to search for a place that he might be tended.

 His time in Mirkwood had taught him that elves were not practical folk. For all that, the dwarf didn’t hesitate to claim the first chamber that he came to. Even such flighty creatures as elves might be made to see reason in the face of injury; the elf whose room he had taken would simply have to suffer being displaced. Settling the elf on a low bench, Gimli took a moment to close his eyes in thought and to summon up images of his mother. Meital’s hands had been as deft at closing a wound as they had been at shaping a jewel. “What would you do first, ama?” he murmured aloud. “Use your dwarf sense,” said the proud Dwarrodam in his memory. “It’s a fire this creature is needing.”

 At his call, the blaze kindled quickly in the hearth. As he worked, he cast curious glances at the elf. For all of his time in Mirkwood, he rarely got to study them up close. He didn’t like to look too long at any elf that could look back; the Firstborn were too likely to take it as a compliment, and they tended to have high enough opinions of themselves. This one was as fair as all of his folk, though too thin and breakable looking for Gimli’s taste. Droplets of sweat pearled his brow like crystal. Wiping the sweat away and tucking the elf under coverlets that seemed far too light and flyaway to do anyone much good, Gimli knew that he had reached the end of his healing expertise. It was time to find Lior. The son of Oin was so skilled at healing that his patients frequently murmured of magic. But where had the elves stashed him?

 Knowing that time was pressing, Gimli took himself to the west guardroom. Of all of the elves that he had come to know, those warriors that patrolled the borders of Mirkwood came the closest to kindness. They enjoyed speaking with Gimli about weapons and the craft of battle and had even allowed him to demonstrate his skill with the axe. They also had more dealings with Erebor than most of their kin, acting as guards for the trade caravans that moved between the mountain and the wood, and so had a better sense of dwarfkind. It was even whispered that one of their leaders had once felt a deep affection for Gimli’s cousin Kili. That elf had been banished from Thranduil’s borders and her name was only spoken in whispers; what little that Gimli knew of her was owed mostly to Fili’s relentless teasing of his brother.

 The guard elves (for so Gimli had come to think of them) greeted him with something approaching cordiality and even offered him wine, but emotion came to trouble their cool, clear gazes when he spoke of the injured elf. At first, Gimli imagined that their concern was nothing more than care for a kinsman, but then they began to speak in their flute-like tongue, talking over one another and urging each other in tense voices.

 “There is some greater matter here than illness,” said the dwarf at last. “But I will not leave the elf to suffer while you sort it out. If you will point me to my kinsman, you may pursue your debate until all the leaves have fallen down and burst forth again, but I do not have time for conversations that I cannot understand.”

 Some of the faces darkened at his bluntness, but something like a smile tugged at the corner of the mouth of one of the elves. Gimli thought that his name was Velende. “You speak true, Master Dwarf. We have rather forgotten ourselves. The name of the elf that you tend is Legolas. He was our prince.”

 “Was?” asked the dwarf. “I am not skilled in the arts of healing, but his wounds were not so grievous as to remove him from the world.”

 “I am glad to hear it, for Legolas was my friend. Yet, he has disobeyed the King and will be sent out of the kingdom when he is well enough to gain his feet. I cannot imagine what made him return.”

 Gimli had seen his wounds and could imagine it easily; the elf had come for aid, had come – had _crawled_ , perhaps – to the only place of safety he had ever known. _Are elves so cruel to their own children?_ he found himself dazedly wondering. _Would they leave him to die on the doorstep of his home? Did others find him before me and step over his limp form?_

 Velende saw the surprise in his face. “You think us unbelievably cold and cruel, Master Dwarf, but we are torn between love and duty. Thranduil has grown cold and imperious. Some say it is because of the darkness that grows, again, at the heart of our forests. To disobey him is to join Legolas in his exile, to live away from all of our kith and kin. It is a hard thing for an elf to tear his heart away from the forest he has lived under and loved and watched grow.”

 “Well I can believe it,” growled the dwarf. “For the nails of your prince are dark with forest earth from where he dragged his failing body through loam and leaffall. If he is of royal blood as you say, will not your own healers come forth to aid him?”

 Velende dipped his head and the grace of the movement sent rage roaring through the sturdy dwarven form. “None will touch him. Come, I will help you to find your kin.”

 Gimli wanted to snarl at him, to refuse lest even this small act of aid be considered a betrayal. But there was pain in the elf’s eyes and he let the words die unspoken as he followed him through the maze of the elf king’s halls.

“I have heard that your own king can be hard of heart,” the elf said as they navigated an ill-lit passage carpeted in moss and in mushrooms. “Are dwarves so different from elves that they would not fear to speak against their lord?”

Gimli’s surprise to hear an elf asking about his culture was quickly lost to amusement. “Aye, Master Elf. Stubborn you think us, and abrasive, combative. But such traits have their uses. When your King has been touched by gold sickness, someone has to speak up and keep the lot of you safe. In Thorin’s case it took twelve dwarves and a hobbit to get him to see sense, to say nothing of the letters from his sister and the words of a wizard. But no one feared to roar at the great royal lummox when lummox he was being, if the words of my father are to be believed.”

 “He could have done them great ill,” protested Velende.

 “Oh, aye. He threw enough boulders and bits of armor and gold and silver pretties about to bring the mountain down, they say – and he even dangled Master Baggins over the battlements.”

 Velende gasped. “The same Master Baggins who became the Prince Consort?”

 “The very same. See – that’s what you’re missing, laddie. You spoke of a clash between love and duty, but it was _love_ that drove those dwarves to countermand their King, love that pushed them to the unpleasant duty of reining him in until he could come back to himself.” He did not add, “That you are willing to do less for this friend and prince that you say that you love makes me question the making of elven hearts,” but he wanted to.

 “But you are here,” the elf persisted. “Bound by a cruel bargain that most believe that Thranduil made only in order to shame your king. How much can he love you if he was willing to send you to us as servants?”

 Gimli might have pointed out Thranduil’s cruelty at making such a bargain and then seeing it through, but he only shrugged. “I am no lord and so cannot comment on the honor of a King and what he will do to see it upheld. I do not know what pangs the heart of Thorin Oakenshield suffered when he sent us from Erebor.” _But I do remember his hand grasping mine in farewell; it was as cold as a winter morn and it was for **me** to give him strength even as he tried to speak a word of blessing. _ “But I do know that he would not suffer to see a subject of his realm given over to pain and to illness when he had healers to save them, even if that subject had been named a traitor by every tongue.”

 They had reached the quarters of Lior, son of Oin and Velende gave Gimli a gentle look. “Perhaps it is the great fortune of the elves that dwarves have come to dwell with us. My warriors and I cannot be seen to aid the Prince, but you may send to us if you need supplies and you may trust us to shield you as you heal him. After that, I cannot say. I imagine that the King’s wrath will fall upon your broad shoulders and that you may spend the rest of your time here in the dungeons.”

Gimli surprised the elf by flashing a somewhat feral grin. “My father and his company enjoyed those dungeons and came out of them with few ill effects. Perhaps it will become something of a family tradition.”

 Watching him go to the side of his kinsman, Velende shook his head and decided that he would never understand dwarves even if all of the ages of the world were given to him to study them.

To be continued! 


	3. Chapter 3

Bilbo Baggins took a look around the sumptuous chambers. They hadn’t looked like much in the first few years after the reclaiming of Erebor, but even as he was healing and courting a rather oblivious hobbit, Thorin had worked to make them into a home. Now sturdy dwarven furniture had made peace with throw blankets purchased in the Shire and Thorin’s bejeweled scabbard rested against the wall with Bilbo’s walking stick. On this particular day, Bilbo had made sure to awaken early in order to move everything breakable out of reach. The latest “There and Back Again” revisions were safely tucked into a desk drawer. And all has been done with hobbit quickness and quietness while Thorin slept. Setting a breakfast tray on their small table, the famous burglar awaited his lover and King.

Just as he had expected, Thorin Oakenshield awoke with a growl and an oath that would have made Bilbo blush even before he had started to learn Khuzdul. Bilbo just sweetened his tea. “Good morning, your majesty,” he called, smile in his voice.

Grousing, grumbling, and sounding not a little bit like a bear emerging from its hibernation, Thorin stumped from their bedchamber into the main room, wondering what had possessed him to marry a creature that could make his royal title sound half an insult. “How can you greet me thus? Have you forgotten what day it is?”

Bilbo bit back on a string of words that were far too crusty for the hour. “I’ve forgotten nothing about you, Thorin son of Thrain, through all of the adventures we’ve shared – including this continuing one. Now, will you be dining on ashes this year _too_ or do you want to have a civilized breakfast with me? The berries in cream are very good.”

Bilbo was proud of himself; when Thorin’s eyes widened at the sight of the tray the hobbit had prepared for him, the burglar hid his satisfaction behind a face so innocent that even Fili and Kili would have been proud. “What… what?” Thorin began to splutter. “What is this?”

“That expression? The one about the ashes? It has to have roots, your Majesty. I thought you might like to explore them in culinary form.”

The ancestral dishes, marked with the runes of the house of Durin, gleamed on the polished wood of the tray. But, in place of porridge or toast or the fried bread and strawberry jam concoction that Bilbo enjoyed making and Thorin enjoyed devouring, the dishes held coal and ashes, garnished with fresh sprigs of rosemary.

“I can forbid you the kitchens,” growled the dwarf.

“You can try,” Bilbo agreed. “But your company will hollow out a whole new kitchen wing for me before they lose my cupcakes, my herb bread, and my summer stew.”

 

Thorin felt like banging his skull against the mountainside. “Loyalty ought to extend further than the stomach,” he lamented. “And unlike the wood elves’ wine, your wit does not grow sweeter with age.”

“Your words sound stern enough, but I can see your lips twitching.”

Thorin made a gruff sound that was all consonants. “Well, perhaps I should put them to better use.”

Bilbo counted the kiss good morning a minor victory.

Though the Shirefolk have written their history for many years (finding it rather rude that no mention of them enters the histories of the Big Folk, except as myth or legend), none of these histories give adequate attention to this small race’s ability to press an advantage. To do so is certainly a hobbit custom and, when done by a skilled practitioner, little less than an art. Having won a kiss from the lordly and solemn King Thorin on this darkest of anniversaries, Bilbo Baggins was now prepared to follow up in true hobbit fashion. Once Thorin has eaten (a bit of bread and tea in place of the ashes, which went back into the fireplace) Bilbo reached into his desk drawer and removed a pile of correspondence. “So, will you hear the words of your newphews and kin today, or will we be having a raging fit again this year?”

Remorse bit sharply into a dwarven soul. It had been a few years since Bilbo had asked him to look on the voluminous collection of letters sent home from the captive dwarves. His reaction at the time had been spectacular – but it hadn’t exactly befitted a King. The wreckage had stretched down the hall from their chamber, and Bilbo had left him to brood in his mess and had taken temporary refuge in the library, refusing to so much clap eyes on him until the thunderclouds cleared from around his brow – and until the mess had been cleared from their home.

“Oh, you needn’t look quite so embarrassed,” the hobbit chided him. “It’s over and done with now, and, if nothing else, it’ll make any of your enemies think twice. It was a fine display of dwarven strength. Even I would have betted against you twisting iron railing out of shape in one go.”

Thorin pressed a hand against his brow; behind his eyes, a headache was beginning to bloom. “Bilbo, you always tell me what the letters say, anyway. Why would you have me hear them, today of all days?”

It was another victory. Thorin had never asked for an explanation before – only raged about his shame and his failure, and all the ways that his hated bargain had betrayed all of his kin.

“I would have you hear them so that you would know that you are loved. I can certainly summarize them for you, but it would do you good to hear it in their own words.” He reached out to stroke an arm that was as firm as the metals Thorin worked; the muscles rose beneath the skin like planes of ice. “We can stay here, Thorin. I will sit right beside you. No one will see you soften, you fierce, stubborn thing.”

The dwarf looked quite helpless. “It will please you? If I listen?”

The hobbit’s eyes began to shine with pleasure. “Immensely. It would please me _immensely_ , Thorin.”

“Just the most recent ones.”

Bilbo merrily agreed, but he thought: _and then we go to visit those families who have lost their sons._

 

To be continued!


	4. Chapter 4

Silver-braided and gifted with eyes that seemed to see through the flesh to the wounds beneath, Lior did what he could with tinctures, teas, and salves. The guard elves, led by Velende, were as good as their word, bringing back the herbs he required under the guise of walking their patrols. New nests of spiders suddenly “cropped up” in areas where Lior told them to look for the plants and Gimli realized that these proud, cold, lovely creatures did _feel_ in their fashion; they did love their prince. They just seemed to fear their king more.

The dwarrows sent with Gimli as tribute to that hard-hearted king would not have liked to hear it, but they shared something with their masters; they, too, cautioned Gimli against the road onto which he had placed his metal-shod boots. When Lior had finished, he turned to his cousin. “You have a Firebeard’s coloring, Gimli. Are you sure that you do not act, now, with a Firebeard’s lack of caution? Why will his own people not see to him?”

Gimli summarized what the elves had told him, nimbly hopping past the bit about dungeons. Lior wasn’t fooled. “Iraknadad, you may be punished!” cried Lior. “We may _all_ be punished!”

Gimli waved him off. “Thranduil’s folk are under orders not to hurt us. Think on it – even the chores they give us are but trifles.” He lifted his axe-bearers arms. “Two buckets they would have me bear, only! They have no understanding of our strength. It may be that I could easily bear any punishment handed down by the forest king.”

Lior did _not_ look comforted. “I will write to Thorin to let him know what you have undertaken. If it turns out that you are mining a shaft that may collapse around you, we will get word to the traders, and they to our emissaries.” He gripped Gimli’s strong, tattooed arm. “But, Gimli, I would know why you do this.”

 _Because the white shine of his skin stole the vision from your eyes and brought poetry to your tongue_ , some traitorous part of him answered, but Gimli gave it such a fierce glare that it bolted for the shadows without looking back. Instead, he drew the coverlets back a little from the fallen elfling to indicate a jagged black line that crossed the plane of his stomach, tore into the muscles of his abdomen. “I know the feel of that wound. I know what he felt when the orcs ran him to ground and pinned him there, kicking him with their hated, heavy boots, poking at him for sport. Different we may be from Thranduil’s folk, but we are alike in this.”

It was clear from the other dwarrow’s face that he was making connections. “You guarded the trade caravans,” he remembered aloud.

“And was once separated from my father and my kin. That day Gimli Gloinul learned well the limits of his own strength. I slew enough of the monsters to be accounted a warrior, after, but if the others had not come looking, I would have been a _fallen_ warrior. I have not forgotten the fiery feel of the poison orcs bear on their knives. I have not forgotten the laughter in their black eyes.”

Lior gripped his shoulder. “Well, I still think you a fool- but a noble and well-spoken one, for all that. Cousin to kings, indeed! You can certainly act the part when you feel up to it!”

Gimli answered him with a smile and lowered eyes, his beard waggling side to side with mirth. “You seemed to have no trouble tending him, for all that elves seem half made of leaf-shadow and ribbons of sun. Will he recover?”

The healer gave him an affronted look. “Healers do not heal by _race_ , you daft dwarrow! Flesh is flesh and bruises are bruises – in men or elves or even wizards, I should say. I’ve done for him all that can be. If he is kept warm and still and given food and water when strong enough to take them, then he will heal well. The fever is still before him, though. He will need washed up – the blankets changed.”

Until that moment, the elf had been an elf – an object not unlike an axe head or a whetstone, or the endless buckets the elves had him bear from the river to the kitchens or the stables. But Lior was looking on him with a steady gaze that made the space between his shoulders prickle with unease. “You’re the healer,” he attempted to say, but was cut off with a look as sharp as a scalpel studded with needles.

“And _you_ chose this mess for yourself when you lifted him up from the leaffall. The task falls to you, cousin-mine, and when the dwarves of Erebor hear that you spent your days here dressing and undressing elven flesh, you’ll be in for your share of jests, I imagine!”

“You are enjoying this too much!” Gimli growled.

“I will leave the strawberry blush you’ve acquired quite out of my letter,” the silver-haired dwarf promised. “Though I doubt I’ll get it out of my mind anytime soon!” Before Gimli could move to throttle him, Lior launched into a detailed explanation of what he would have to do over the course of the days ahead to see the elven prince well. Forced to listen for the sake of his charge, Gimli left off all thoughts of violence (though not necessarily of revenge). When Lior had finished, Gimli summoned the guard elves to give them a report and to petition them, once more, to help.

Direct help was, again, refused – though a happy light came into their eyes at the news that Legolas would recover, if only to be driven out again. “We will see that no one misses you at your duties,” they promised. “We will tell the king that we have need of you in the guardroom so that you will not be missed.”

“There are all those shipments of barrels coming in,” another elf offered. “Thranduil will believe that we welcome help drawing them from the water.”

Gimli was surprised to see that the other elves actually had the decency to look discomfited at his words; they, at least, remembered their history when it came to dwarrows and barrels – that failed escape attempt engineered by Bilbo Baggins. Gimli shrugged to himself; at least the little fellow had been plucky enough to _try_!

“I will thank you for any tale that you tell the king that gives me time to see to your prince,” the dwarf replied, “though I still feel that he would prefer to be tended by his own folk and to wake to familiar faces.”

Their faces grew drawn at that, but the pain they clearly felt did not sway them. “Prince Legolas gave up any claim on our care when he disobeyed our lord,” Velende said at last. “But please keep us informed, son of Gloin. We will do what we can without arousing Thranduil’s displeasure. Perhaps when Legolas is well, he can make an appeal.”

Gimli wished that ­ _they_ were brave enough to make an appeal on the prince’s behalf _right now_. The sight of him should have been enough to move any heart – even a king’s. Still, he recognized that he had received all of an answer he was going to get. He would have preferred other assurances. If some elf came upon him while he was cleaning Legolas or changing a bandage – would they seek to lop off his hands for defiling elfin flesh?

Velende, at last, saw his unease. “You are under our protection, Child of Durin,” he promised. “I know you have little reason to trust us and less to commend us to you. I know that our ways seem strange and that you must feel alone in the midst of us, away from your kin. But strange as we are, we _are_ grateful for what you have undertaken and we _will_ protect you.”

It was the kindest speech Gimli had ever heard from an elf – and the rest of their audience was obviously quite taken aback by the whole thing. Who had ever heard of a Firstborn putting himself between a dwarf and danger? But Gimli’s blood was no less royal than that of Legolas Thranduillion and he knew how to answer so noble a vow. Bowing low, he thanked Velende and his folk for their offer and gave his word to do all that he could for their downed comrade. “But now I must hurry back to his side.”

“I will send one of my scouts for news as often as I can,” said Velende. “If you have further need of your kinsman or need of food or blankets, you need only pass them the word.”

Gimli bowed again in answer – then steeled himself to deal with a bed full of fevered and mostly-naked elf. If ever he made it back to the Lonely Mountain, he would have a few choice words for his King. If they were going to make bargains with elves, then someone needed to see to it that such bargains were very, very specific. He walked back to his chamber muttering into his beard. _Half-naked elven princelings_ … _I wager even those dwarves who faced down the dragon would fear an assignment such as this!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and my many apologies for taking so long to update! It sometimes takes me an age to get back to a story... if you've been waiting on this one, thank you for your patience!


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